Neural network for object detection and tracking

1. A method of multi-object tracking, the method comprising:

receiving, by processing hardware, a sequence of images generated at respective times by one or more sensors configured to sense an environment through which objects are moving relative to the one or more sensors;

constructing, by the processing hardware, a message passing graph having a multiplicity of layers associated with the sequence of images, the constructing including:

generating a plurality of feature nodes to represent features detected in at least a portion of the sequence of images, and

generating edges that interconnect at least some of the feature nodes across adjacent layers of the message passing graph to represent associations between the features;

training a neural network supported by the message passing graph, the training including: performing a pass through the message passing graph in a forward direction including by adding a new feature node based on a feature detection and a new edge node, and performing a pass through the message passing graph in a backward direction, including by updating at least one edge node of the message passing graph; and

tracking, by the processing hardware, multiple features through the sequence of images, including passing messages through the message passing graph.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein constructing the message passing graph further includes:

generating corresponding edge nodes associated with the respective generated edges, each node of the corresponding edge nodes connected to exactly one corresponding feature node in a first layer and exactly one corresponding feature node in a second layer, the first layer immediately preceding the second layer.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising passing at least one of the messages from at least one of the feature nodes to at least one of the edge nodes.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the tracking includes:

identifying a plurality of tracks, wherein at least one of the tracks is a sequence of connections between at least a portion of the edge nodes and at least a portion of the feature nodes representing associated features of a same object, through at least a portion of the multiple layers of the message passing graph.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein constructing the message passing graph further includes:

generating, for the new feature node, at least one respective memory unit configured to output a probability that the feature detection is correct; and

generating, for the new edge node, at least one respective memory unit configured to output a probability that a connection between two corresponding feature nodes connected to the new edge node is correct.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the at least one respective memory unit is implemented as Long Short Term Memories (LSTMs).

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the at least one respective memory unit is implemented as Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs).

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracking includes:

limiting the passing of the messages to only those layers of the message passing graph that are currently within a rolling window of a finite size.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the tracking further includes:

advancing the rolling window in the forward direction in response to generating

a new layer of the message passing graph, based on a new image.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the tracking further includes:

in response to advancing the rolling window past a layer: (i) fixing parameters of the layer, and (ii) excluding any further change to the layer.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the size of the rolling window is between 3 and 10, measured in a number of layers.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

calculating a total cross-entropy loss.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing the pass in the forward direction includes pruning at least one low-probability feature node of the plurality of feature nodes.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

generating an inference using the neural network supported by the message passing graph, the generating including:

performing a pass through the message passing graph in the forward direction to generate probabilities, and

producing one or more tracks through the message passing graph using the generated probabilities.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the constructing further includes, for each feature node:

generating a feature vector using an objector detector;

initializing a hidden state of at least one feature node of the plurality of feature nodes using the feature vector; and

performing an end-to-end training of the neural network supported by the message passing graph to jointly optimize object detection and object tracking.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the sequence of images includes receiving sensor data from at least one of a LIDAR sensor or a camera.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein at least a portion of the detected features represents a cluster of pixels.

18. A system, comprising:

a processing hardware configured to:

receive a sequence of images generated at respective times by one or more sensors configured to sense an environment through which objects are moving relative to the one or more sensors;

constructing a message passing graph having a multiplicity of layers associated with the sequence of images, the constructing including:

generate a plurality of feature nodes to represent features detected in at least a portion of the sequence of images, and

generate edges that interconnect at least some of the feature nodes across adjacent layers of the message passing graph to represent associations between the features;

train a neural network supported by the message passing graph including by being configured to perform a pass through the message passing graph in a forward direction including by adding a new feature node based on a feature detection and a new edge node, and perform a pass through the message passing graph in a backward direction, including by updating at least one edge node of the message passing graph; and

track multiple features through the sequence of images, including passing messages through the message passing graph.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the one or more sensors includes at least one of: a LIDAR sensor or a camera.

20. A computer program product, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer-readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving, by processing hardware, a sequence of images generated at respective times by one or more sensors configured to sense an environment through which objects are moving relative to the one or more sensors;

constructing, by the processing hardware, a message passing graph having a multiplicity of layers associated with the sequence of images, the constructing including:

generating a plurality of feature nodes to represent features detected in at least a portion of the sequence of images, and

generating edges that interconnect at least some of the feature nodes across adjacent layers of the message passing graph to represent associations between the features;

training a neural network supported by the message passing graph, the training including: performing a pass through the message passing graph in a forward direction including by adding a new feature node based on a feature detection and a new edge node, and performing a pass through the message passing graph in a backward direction, including by updating at least one edge node of the message passing graph; and

tracking, by the processing hardware, multiple features through the sequence of images, including passing messages through the message passing graph.